The ULTIMATE SUCCESS ADVICE For Every 20+ Year Old | Dean Graziosi
Dean Graziosi argues that learning directly from successful people beats traditional college for many. He credits his dyslexia, collision shop work, and hands-on mentorship for accelerating his results, and pushes small daily actions and solution-oriented thinking over waiting for perfect conditions.
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Most successful people know the power of learning from those who've already been there. Even if you're strong willed, if you let the wrong thoughts come in, it will paralyze you or it will cause procrastination. Aligning my chakras and meditate. I'm just gonna go. And I was wrong. Like when I look back in retrospect, what got me there was my personal growth. So what is self education? What is the knowledge industry, the knowledge business, the information age? It's really this. It's learning from people who've already been there. And I just want to share the importance of it because so many times people see someone successful and they think it's something that you can't. Like it's not tangible, it's something you don't see. It was a gift. It was someone gave them a hand up, somebody lent them money. And when I really dig under the hood, what I realize is most successful people know the power of learning from those who've already been there. Listen, how many people do you know go through years of college? Now I'm not talking about doctors and lawyers, but go through years and years of college and when they're done, it's almost like starting over. My nephew Tanner, he's like one of the most important people in my company. It's not because he's my nephew, he's amazing. But he went to school for five or six years taking business and marketing. And when he came to work from me, he said I learned more in the first three weeks about marketing than I did in the last six years. And I mentored him and he got self education from me. I actually bought him marketing courses from people I admire. I made him read books about it. And within six months he was one of the best marketers, direct response marketers and understood it. Not because of his six years of school, not because of his degree, not because of the college debt he had, because he learned from someone who had already been there. And that is the key in so many areas of what you need right now. Listen, when I was young and wanting to go further, I was programmed like most of us are. I remember in high school wanting more, desiring more. I wanted more money. I wanted to take care of my mom who worked three jobs to make nothing. My dad, who my parents were split, but my dad worked his tail off at a collision shop every day, getting dirty and smelling paint fumes. I wanted to take care of them. But there was part of me that was so programmed that if I didn't go to traditional education, which I knew I would. I had dyslexia. I struggled in school. In fact, I hated school. I couldn't wait to get out. By 11th grade, I was out half a day and already working in my dad's collision shop, right? But I have to tell you, there was a part of me, most of me was like, man, everybody says you don't be successful, you don't live in the nice house, get the car, have the freedom. Without college, I'm kind of screwed, right? It was like we're programmed. And I'm not knocking. If you went to school, please knock that. What I'm sharing, though, is a shift in our mindset, A shift in what really gets us the results, and that's specialized knowledge that we learn through self education, right? Just new terminology. And I just wish my guidance counselor would have said, hey, there's three choices, right? You can go to college, Great. You can not go to college. And you can just maybe go in the blue collar world where you don't need a degree, where maybe you can learn on the job, right? Or there's a third road where maybe you can find a way to make some money while you self educate, while you learn from a mentor, while you read books, while you work as an apprentice, while you do courses and workshops and masterminds. Like, no one ever talked about that kind of lane down the middle. My guidance counselor was like, school, Ah, heaven, and you'll live the perfect life. Or, oh, no, blue collar broke, Drink too much beer and kick your dog. Like, I'm not being rude. I'm just like, that's how it felt. And I have to tell you that I questioned. I always wanted more. Just so you know, I wanted to take care of my mom and retire my mom since I was really little, like 9 years old. I wanted to make money to stop her from working so hard. We all have those memories of what was the first thing that drove you to more, right? You have yours, I have mine. But I have to tell you, I didn't think I'd get there. And how lucky am I that I stumbled on self education, gaining specialized knowledge? And I realized now, I didn't call it that then, but I sucked at kind of getting a. Like, if someone wanted to teach you how to ride, drive a bulldozer, right? I'm not the kind of guy that could take a class on it or read a manual on how to do it. I watched. And I had someone nice enough when I was building houses to show me I was getting self education. Someone who's so good on a bulldozer. I sat, I remember I was holding the heavy beam of the bulldozer while they were driving. I was watching them do all the handles. And I bet you three, four, five days I was watching how they did it and how they, like, you know, when they push a bulldozer and the piles too much, you got to lift up and all these little shifts and changes, right? I watched them for three, four, five days. A week later, I was on a bulldozer. Within two weeks, people thought I was an expert, right? Same thing with a backhoe. I'm just giving you completely different scenarios. Same thing with a backhoe and an excavator. And then I built houses. I modeled this guy that had been building houses forever. I hired him on the first one. I told him I wanted to do them myself. He goes, all right, I'll teach you. I paid him to build my first house. When I was in my early 20s, I bought raw land, subdivided. I was building houses. I didn't go to school for building houses. I didn't know how to read architecture plans. I wasn't the smartest kid in school. But this guy had been building houses for 30 years, and he took me under his wing and we built the entire house together. Every time he'd get off the ladder or get something or talk to his team, say, dean, come here, listen. The way I share with them, Dean, let me show you this blueprint. See the way this looks here? See this L bracket goes here. Don't do this, do that, and make sure you're always. And I just, I absorbed it like a sponge, you know, I built one house with him. The second house we co built by the third one, I built all the rest of the houses myself with my own team, right? Because I got self education, I got specialized knowledge. The problem with general knowledge is they teach you all of it. When really sometimes you could Google all the rest of this stuff. I just need to know how to build the house. So in today's world, I would pay for him to do that. I did. I paid for him to do the first one, right? I would buy a course, I would buy a training. I want the specialized knowledge. I want to learn how to do real estate. Specialized knowledge. I want to learn how to build houses, cut hair, do anything. Why would you get more general knowledge? Overwhelm yourself or why would you learn through your own trial and error? That's the most difficult thing on the planet. And this is also the reason why Tony and I have Been so obsessed with teaching people how to be in the self education industry, how to share your specialized knowledge with people who need it. Right? The guy, let me just tell you, the guy who taught me how to build houses, he didn't think to himself, I'm a house expert or I'm in the knowledge industry. He didn't realize it, but in today's world that's exactly what he should be doing. He could be doing a training, a course on how to build a house, how to frame a house, how to read plans. People want all of that and that's why this is such an amazing time to be alive. So why am I sharing this today? A couple things. One, I want to encourage you when it's time to level up, go to your next level, stop thinking so much on how to do it and start thinking who could help you get there. Now when you start going down the who road, it could be me on my own through trial and error. World's moving too fast to figure it out. On your own who could also be school. Should I go back to college, get my master's degree? More general knowledge? Do you really need that? Or the who could be someone has already done what you want to do at the highest level and now they're offering a workshop, a course, a mastermind or something that allows you to start off where they left off. I encourage you to seek out self education, specialized knowledge in the areas that you want to grow. Don't try to figure it out on your own. In most cases, don't go back to school. Right. We need to go faster and quicker. And on the opposite side of that is be an investigative reporter and see what the knowledge industry is all about. That's why Tony and I created KBB and the Movement of Help. KBB stands for knowledge broker Blueprint. Really just taking your knowledge, brokering it to other people to impact their lives and get paid to do it. That's what it is, but that's where the world's going, especially with these shifts. The knowledge industry is exponentially growing. People are at home and they're realizing the fastest way to their next level is to learn from someone who's already done there. So if you have a skill, a hobby, a passion, an expertise, I'm going to encourage you to share it. Share it with friends and family. If you don't want to make it a business, just give out. Like give it to other people to allow them to go faster, practice. And the cool part is if you ever want to learn how you could turn that into a business, then you're definitely going to want to go to deanandtoni.com check it out anytime you want. Deanandtony.com you can register for a two hour training with Tony and I that talk about the knowledge industry to kind of pull back the curtain on what him and I have been doing collectively for over 60 years and see if it makes sense. If you'd love to get the blueprint to help you be in the knowledge industry, great. And if not, that's okay. Again, that's@deanandtony.com, but if not, if you want to go to another level, if you have a desire, start reprogramming yourself. We've been taught that it's middle school and high school and then college and then ah, how's that working out for most people when only 27% of people who get a degree use it, Half of them hate the job they have. Right? So start changing that to back to school on my own. How do I do it to who can help me get there and go search it, Go find it. Find the person that's already done it. Tony Robbins, if you guys are a part of kbb. You know he went really deep on this the other night in a training. But I want to give my perspective on this, plus what I learned from Tony. I've learned so much from him. He's such a dear friend. But here's what happens in uncertain times. We'll use that. Maybe we could call it unprecedented times. Right? None of us have ever seen this. This is completely different. Right? So when something's unprecedented, it causes uncertainty, which causes fear, which causes paralysis, which causes you to be left behind. Can we agree to that? Even if you're strong willed, if you let the wrong thoughts come in, it will paralyze you or it will cause procrastination. Like you wonder, why do I procrastinate sometimes? Why did I binge out on Netflix? I know I have work to do. I know I want to go to another level. What the hell's going on with me? It's that evolution. Unprecedented creates uncertainty, creates fear, creates holding back, which creates you to procrastinate and then miss your opportunity and then you're left behind. We're not going to do that here. So right now, number one, focus on what you have, not what you lost or you don't. Let me just ask you, if you focus on that, you have your health today and I hope every single one of you is massively healthy. If you're not I'm sending my love and prayers. But let's just say if you have your health today, if you woke up today, if you have the ability to gain capabilities like you're doing right now, today, if you have an innovative mind, if you have an artful mind, if you have a creative mind, or maybe you have a process driven mind, you know how to create SOPs, standing operating procedures, you love Excel spreadsheets, or maybe Excel spreadsheet freaks you out. And you love the innovation of getting into flow state and figuring out what's going on next in the world. When you focus on that, when you focus on your children, when you focus on someone you love, how does that feel? Right? You have this right now. No matter if you're in quarantine, you have this, you have these capabilities. You're not starting from zero, you're already on third base. When you think about all you've learned, all you've gone through, how about thinking through that one thing that was so difficult and you didn't know if you'd be okay, but you actually are way better of a human because of that. And you look back and go, I conquered that. Just let me know how that feels. Or how does that feel inside of you when you think through that? Right? Because that's something you have now. Let me just think about this. Let me ask you this. What about now? Take a moment and think about what you've lost. Did you lose income through all this? Did you lose connection with dear friends? Did you lose the ability to go to your favorite restaurant or go to happy hour? Did you lose the ability to go to the park and walk your dog with friends? Did you lose the ability to hang out with your friends or even a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Did you lose the ability to not leave your house if you live in an apartment in a city someplace again? Did you lose the momentum that you have? Did you lose some of that fire when you think about that or you think about that, you don't have money saved up, you don't have resources, you don't have anybody who has your back. You don't have the right education. How does that feel? All in these moments, nothing's changed in the outside world. Nothing since we've been talking changed in the outside world. But those two thoughts are bipolar opposites. One empowers you and says, I do have what I need. I am on third base. I have learned a lot. I am. I have grit, I have desire, I have passion. I am creative, I am innovative. I am unstoppable. I am a force to be reckoned with. I can make this happen. This is all you got. You got more from me. Life happens for me, not to me. I'm being sharpened. I'm a piece of steel and steel sharpens steel. I'm going to be a better version of me. I'm going to come out as a new man, as a new woman. Nothing can stop me. I got goosebumps. I don't know about you guys compared to the opposite side of that is why would they take this from me? Why is this happening? When is the government going to give me more money? Why am I still stuck home? When is this going to change? Should I be on CNN or Fox? Should I be on msnbc? Or maybe, or maybe the Today show can help me or what should I do? Or let me see what my friends had to say or, you know, I'm gonna go on Facebook for a while. No, I can't take all this. I'm gonna pour a glass of wine and watch Netflix for the next six hours because I've lost so much and I don't know where my future is. I'm not trying to be an ass, but which one empowers you? Which one turns you into a freaking leader? A role model for yourself, a role model for your subconscious, a role model for your family, a role model for your friends. Friends. We want to fix this country. We want to fix this world. We got to fix us first. That's why we're a part of a group like this. No games, no hesitation. It's really simple. I'm not trying to over exaggerate this. What you focus on is what we get. If we focus on what we have, we are one version with goosebumps. When we focus on what was taken away, what we don't have, or what could go bad, we are screwed. Don't even think you could be a leader. Do you have moments of it? Of course. You're human. So am I. But you have to obsess on not allowing that to happen. Focus on what you could do today and not regret on past misses or future tragedies. Okay, one is focusing on what you have or not have or not have, have or lost. This is the next iteration of that is focus on what actions you can take today and not regret on past misses. Now let me just ask you, how many of you, now that things have shifted, thought to yourself, ah, I should have done my own business sooner. Just tell me if one of these. If you're listening right now and you're not even watching. If you're listening, think about this. How many of you, since this shift has happened, thought to yourself, I should have started my own business. I should have done something different. I should have saved more money. I shouldn't have bought those stupid things. Why did I waste that? Why didn't I partner? Why didn't again, I scale the business? Why didn't I quit and do this? Why didn't I get the promotion? Why was I so lazy? Why did I procrastinate? Why did I just feel, you know, fat and humble? Right? I don't mean fat physically, just like, you know, like lazy and like, I'm good. You know, Sometimes when the world is aspirational, we want more, but we're like, this is pretty good going on. Let me just chill. How many of you have had a little regret of just chilling, of just being okay, of not being freaking hungry like you are right now? Right? But let me ask you about something. When you think about that, when you think about those regrets, does it make you feel empowered? Or does it make you feel, ah, crap, I missed it. Now it's too late. The economy crashed. I can't do my own thing. It's bs. It is. That thought of focusing on regret or past misses, it is the same thing. It robs you from who you want to be. All of your focus, you ready for this? All of your focus needs to be on what you can do at this very moment. What can you do today that can plant a seed for tomorrow? Who will you become now? Those regrets were put there in your life. There's nothing you can do. God creates or whatever you believe in. It happens for us, not to us. Like Tony says, they were there. If you believe this for a reason, burn that pass down. Let it go to the ground. Stop looking in your rear view mirror. You cannot drive a car forward looking in your rearview mirror. It's an impossible task. You get in an accident and you crash. You have to look for forward. You have to pay attention to what's going on right now. And the other thing too is you can't look ahead and paint a movie and create a future tragedy of what your life could be. Well, if I just sit here, this is going to happen if I don't do this. No, you can't. There can't be any time looking too far ahead, painting a vision or looking too far behind. We have to live as Eckhart Tolle says, in this moment. We have to live in the now and decide what we can do now. What can you do today that can set an intention, create momentum, plant a seed? So when this ends, and this too shall end, who can you become? What capabilities can you learn? Again, you're here. Amazing. But what else can you do today that has nothing to do with the past and nothing to do with a fearful future? Something you can do today. Is there a book you can read? A course you can finish? An email you can craft? A URL you could register? A phone call you can make? Finally say no to something in your life that's not serving you or your bigger future. Finally say yes to something. What can you do today? What fear can you face today? Can you go do a Facebook live? Can you do an Instagram live? Can you film your first video, create your sales page, Finish the damn course, get enrolled in next level education and commit. Burn the boats, pay for speed. What can do you do today that can move the needle tomorrow in your life? That's what leaders do. That's what people that are role models do. Now, I'm not trying to be an ass, but most people are sitting around waiting for someone else to fix their life. No Prince Charming is coming. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but there's no Prince Charming. Nobody's coming through the door and sweep you up. I'm going to fix this. There's no president going to fix this. Doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat. Doesn't matter who was president. Right now. There's school. There's no good answers for anyone. The only people that can fix this is us. Right here, inside here. Our actions, our thoughts, what we decide to do. That's it. Take that on. You want to be a leader? Take that shit on. For lack of a better word, it's on us. I get the glory internally when I know I took responsibility for this. I took my role in this world.
How much of where you are today is a reflection of what you went through when you were younger with your family and with the work that you had to do to get ahead? How much of it was that and how much of it is just who you are as a human being and something that's inside.
It's like nature versus nurture.
Exactly. Yeah, right.
You know, that's a really great question. And I don't think I've been asked that much. That balance, like nature versus nurture, I think it's, listen, you don't have to have a horrible, horrific childhood and no money and live in a trailer park and have dyslexia to be successful. Right. We see people from all walks of life. I hope my kids are massively successful in their own way. And they're not. They don't have the struggles I've had. Right. But I think for me personally, I would bet to say it's 50, 50. Like I always had this hunger for more. I didn't know how I was going to get there. But if I think back to my oldest memories of wanting to be successful, I bet you it was 10, 11 years old. And I remember, just as a naive word, I remember saying, I want to be rich at 10. But it wasn't because the Internet didn't exist back then. So I didn't see visuals of people in Lamborghinis and flying in yachts and private planes and partying in Vegas. I didn't even know any of that existed for me. I wanted to be wealthy because I watched my mom work three jobs, literally not be there for us, not because she didn't want to. My dad and her split when I was three, he didn't help financially. So she cut hair, cleaned houses and painted houses all week for less than 100 bucks a week. And she'd come home at 8 o' clock at night and her back would hurt. I mean, she was, I think back, she was in her 30s. Her back would hurt, her feet would hurt, her hands hurt from holding paint brushes and, and cleaning houses and being on her knees scrubbing. Right? So I remember wanting to be rich at 10 years old to take care of her. Yeah, right. And I got hair standing up on my arms because I think that's a lot different than just wanting to be rich for rich sake. Right? Like I had a. I had a freaking purpose. Right? That's a perfect word. And so I'd better say it's both. And here's the thing I'd love to share with everybody I know. In my 20s, if someone, when I wanted to be wealthy, if someone said, hey, you got to work on your personal growth, you got to work on your mindset, and then you'll be bulletproof. I'd be like, yeah, whatever, I'm a hustler, give me the tool, show me how to make the money, I'll do it. I'm not going to jump up and down and practice aligning my chakras and meditate. I'm just going to go. And I was wrong. Like, when I look back in retrospect, what got me there was my personal growth, my mindset of saying, I am retiring my mom, I am not Letting this shit happen, and there's no one going to get in my way. I. Not a brick wall, not failure, not insecurities, not my friends telling me I'm nuts. My sister literally sat me down like an intervention in my twenties, telling me I was a dreamer. Stop. You're not capable of this stuff. You're gonna fail, right? But what kept me going, it wasn't, yes, I discovered real estate, but I also did well with the tow truck company and fixing cars and selling cars. It was that unstoppable. Like, nothing's getting in my way. And if I could give anyone a gift, that's the gift I'd give.
That may be the most important thing that I've ever heard you say, because here's the thing. I work with a lot of new entrepreneurs. Now for the first time in my life, I'm working with new entrepreneurs. And I've always. I've always been a very big on mindset. Even going back to like listening to Zig Ziglar and that, yeah, it just putting positivity into my life and into my mind. But now working with new entrepreneurs, it's one of the things that I noticed more than anything is like, it's not you. You have all the capabilities, like, you can do this. You lack the mindset for that sort of thing. Let me ask you a question related to that. So you talk about, people talk about. And one of the questions I get asked all the time is how if you haven't had any successes, like any significant successes, you've just kind of been faced with failure after failure, how do you create a mindset conducive to greatness? How do you fall?
Great question. And you know, it's funny, you're asking me really awesome questions. So I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're getting it. Because when you ask, it's like I have 14 different versions, like, feel like they're downloaded once that I want to share. Like, did you ever have that, like, ask questions? I could go down 20 roads right now with that answer. But here's what I'd say is what's the opposite of not getting it done right? There's two things. Like, if you don't continue, you can already design your future, right? So if you don't get over the next hurdle, if you don't keep pushing, if you don't overcome the obstacles, I could bet to say it's really easy to decide where you're going to be in five years. You could write it down. On a piece of paper, right? You'll be stuck with what you're doing, with the same worries, the same goals, but on the other side of your next failure, the other side of the thing that hurt the most, the person that let you down, the money didn't come through, the marketing that didn't work. If you keep going, on the other side of that is your next level of life. You just don't know which one of those obstacles or failures is your last one. Now, I think of two things. So one, I'm going to go back over to the other thing. I can tell you here, a lot of stuff that I share, and this is a silly word, and maybe you've heard me say it before, but what if your failures were nothing more than paying success tax? Yes, I love that principle, but I want you to really think about that. What if? So let's think about this. What if, Whether it's God, the universe, karma, whatever you believe in. I believe in God. What if God had a success auditor and said, you really want to impact the world? You really want a next level? I'm not giving it to you easy. Listen, Jason, in your life, has anything come easy? Like, have you ever woke up one day and you got the stimulus check in the mail? Someone said, here's a million bucks, let's be partners and go invest. You spend the money any way you want. Your parents or friends came to you and said, I'm so proud you want to be an entrepreneur. I'm all for you. Has it ever gone that way? I think the world thinks that everything I've done has been blocked with adversity, blocked with 500 no's, people letting you down, my own self doubt, saying, you're crazy, you're not going to make it. That's just part of it. So what if those failures were actually designed for you to learn? I can't dabble. I got to go deeper. This isn't the right thing for me. I can't trust other people. Or I need to trust other people more. What if all that was designed and you don't know if it takes three failures or 13 before all of a sudden you're allowed into your next level? Like, I always. I think of crazy stuff. But what if it was the end of your life and you met your maker, right? And we're sitting down like this and you got. God says, okay, so tell me how it went. It's like, you know, I was dying to do my own thing and impact more people's lives, but, you know, I tried, and that partner still took the money, and it didn't work out. I tried the marketing, and then freaking Facebook changed the algorithm. So. So, God be like, so what'd you do? Well, you know, it failed. So I, you know, I went to this. I got this job, and, you know, it was good. I had a good life. I made good money. I got to be a. You know, I was a pretty good dad, pretty good husband, pretty good wife. I picture God being like, oh, my God, another one. You only had. You had three more failures, dude. If you would have got over three more in those three more failures, you would have learned what not to do. You would have learned the route. You would have navigated new territory. You would have built more grit. You would have realized that marketing comes before figuring out the product. I had all this design for you, but you gave up. All right, thanks. Next. Like, think about that, right? Yeah.
That's awful.
That's an awful thing. And then you go, oh, oh, shit. Can I do it over? Like, nah, sorry, sorry. Your time's up next. I'd be like, no, I think about that shit. I still approach things like, I'm broke. I do. I still approach it like I'm five points down and there's five seconds left. My team is always like, how do you have so much urgency? It's because I want to just keep squeezing out of life everything I can. So what I want to share with you on that note is I'm sorry if you failed. I'm sorry if people let you down, but what if the real me's not sorry? What if that was designed exactly for you? The path you're supposed to be on and all the crap you think went wrong was actually all the ingredients for what's about to go right. If you have the stamina to keep going. Dale Carnegie talking about living in airtight compartments. He said, when the worry really compounds, When I'm looking at yesterday and I'm trying to redo things that went wrong or shift, I should have. God, I should have jumped in real estate when it was sooner. I should have made this happen. I should have fixed that relationship. I should have done this with my kids. I should have been. More time. You can't. Should have. You can't go back and undo it. His whole thing is live in airtight compartments. The past, I always say, this is your research and development. Take what serves you. You have to let the rest the of go. As hard as that is for some of you, you can't. Regret will only eat you Alive. Wishing you would have, could have, should have, will only make you have more of that. History is bound to repeat itself when you worry about yesterday, but also airtight compartments for the future. What if this president destroys our country? What if the economy collapses? What if, what if? What if? What if? If you are worrying, in most cases, you are looking backwards or you're looking into the future. You're looking at a future movie that hasn't been directed or made yet. And you're looking at a past that you can't undo. So why the hell would we obsess on it? We do. I still do. But what I've learned to do and what I want to reinforce with you is acknowledge it. Acknowledge it. And that leads me right into the next thing. Acknowledge it. And don't take the life so seriously. Don't take life so seriously. That's a tough one. Some of you are talking right now. So, Dean, you had me until now. Life is serious. Yeah, it is serious. And I worry too. Guys, if you think I'm up here and I share all this stuff because I got it all dialed in and it's perfect, then I'm your raw. I'm not your mentor. I'm not your guru. I am just someone who works on this every day of my life. I surround myself with people I think are the most successful on the planet. Not just with money, but with happiness and joy. I talk to Tony Robbins a couple days a week. I have so many incredible people in my life. I burn through a book every 10 to 15 days. Now. I work on this every day. So I would never sit up here and say, this is me, perfect. And just do what I do. No, I get it. I know your fears. I know your pains. I know your worries. I know your excitement. I know where you want to go. And I just want to give you an easier way to implement it into your life. Life. So try to acknowledge and live in airtight compartments. Yesterday's gone. Rob. What? You can throw the rest away. Tomorrow isn't there yet. One shift today in a positive direction shifts all the things of the future. So how can you worry about it? If you worry less today, accomplish more, the whole future changes. Right? It's like dominoes. If domino's has five different directions, which one you knock down first is going to take you down a different road. Worry today, stay on the same path, live in an airtight compartment, and tomorrow will change all on its own. So don't try to predict it. You are the predictor of your future. But it Starts only in today. We only have today. We don't have yesterday anymore, and tomorrow's not here. You only have today to work on. So do you want to. You want to attack life with vibrancy and enthusiasm and excitement today, or do you just want to keep kicking the can down the road and 5, 10, 20, 30 years go by and you're like, how did that just happen? So see the funny side of life and don't take things so seriously. You know, we are all. This sounds really, like, morbid, but we are all dying, right? If someone said you had a week left, if you had a week left, what would you do? How would you treat other people? How would you be grateful for the little things? I know everybody said this, and I don't want to. I don't want to give you this, like, ooh, no crap, Dean. Of course I'd be happier. But really think about that. If you had a week left, would any of the stuff you're worried about matter seriously? Would it matter? Would you just want to go grab your kids, your husband, your wife, your parents, friends, family? Would you just want to go out and roll in the grass? Would you dance in the rain? Somebody said that before. Would you dance in the rain? Would you appreciate just the tiniest little things? Of course you would. Can we live every day like we're dying? Like. Like we had a week to live? No, not possible. But can we remind ourselves and not take shit so seriously? For lack of a better word, when things go wrong, what if you just go, I can't believe this happened. Because your body literally think about it. Something goes wrong, something's not right. You go, oh, God, I can't believe that. Why would that happen? I've been doing everything right. I've been working hard. I've been putting the time in, I sacrificed, and it didn't work? Or you go, I can't believe that shit happened to me. All of it I put in, and this happened. Oh, well, what can I learn from it? Same situation. How do you think your body's going to feel? How do you think your gut is going to feel? How do you think the stress hormones are going to feel? How do you think you're going to portray to other people? Do you want to bring everybody else down or you want to bring everybody else up? Do you want to be the thermostat? Do you want to be the thermometer of life? You get to decide. And these are just all little hacks I'm trying to give you so you can live A different side. So you can take. When shit goes wrong, the people who make it through take it, they understand it, they feel it for a minute and they let it go. Don't take life so seriously and say, how can I solve this? How can I do this and not let myself suffer. Another one Dale Carnegie always talks about is staying busy. That kind of goes along with what I shared before. I wanted to share about solutions. When you're worried about something in your business, if you're one of my real estate students and you're worrying about an employer hiring employees or going quicker, getting more leads, getting more clients, getting more sales, we can worry about those. But if one second, even an extra second, is on static worry rather than solutions, then you're doing yourself a disservice. If you get up in the middle of the night and you can't sleep because you're worried about it, stop sitting there and let it go over in your head over and over. And you think about it this way and then it comes back up and you think about it this way. And then what if this goes wrong? And then this goes wrong? Get your ass out of bed and write down five solutions. You'll go back to sleep. How do I fix this lead problem? I get more capabilities and then take action. I hire a virtual assistant. I don't know what the answer is, but you do. You have the answer. You know one thing I stole from a friend of mine, Gail Kingsbury. When my kids ask me something, I'll always say something simple like dad, where's my glove? Baseball glove. I'll say, if you had to know, where do you think it is? I don't know. But if you had to know. I think it's in the back of mom's car. Alright, go check. Ask yourself that. I don't know how to fix this. Really, you don't? Not at all. Clueless. I doubt it. I doubt it. I doubt it highly. But what if you had to know how to fix fix it? Ask yourself that question. What if you had to know, how would you fix it? Okay, do the best you can. Every day that one is so important because we beat ourselves up. Think about this. I've said this before, but if you owned a million dollar racehorse, how would you treat a million dollar racehorse? Would you give it really good food? Would you make sure it slept? Would you want it to be next to a bunch of crazy horses and let it stress or whatever a horse would stress over? Right? Noisy horses, no sleep. Or would you want to put it in a Place where it slept good and took care of it and gave it the right food and don't let it be mean to it. It's a million dollar racehorse. It's an investment. You are your own million dollar racehorse. But we will kick our own asses, for lack of a better word. We'll have a day where you, you get done so many things you didn't write down. And the one thing that didn't go right, or the one parenting mistake, the one business mistake, you didn't get those leads, you didn't make that call. We will beat ourselves up. Here's all I know. We can only do the best we can. So instead of judging your scorecard based on probably unrealistic expectations, how about judging yourself? If you did the best you could that day, and if you haven't, if you sat around, did nothing and just thought about what's wrong with the world and didn't take action, then kick your ass. Kick yourself in the ass a little bit. Get out there and take action. But all you can do, all you can do is your best each and every day. And when you do, it's the same. When I tell my kids when they play baseball, I'm like, you're going to win today no matter what. You're 100% chance you're winning today. And my son, I don't know, we might lose. I'm like, no. If you play your best, if you help out your team, if you, if you're a team player, if you stay positive, if you go out there and give it your all and the score is 100 to nothing, you still won, bud. You still won. But you got to give it your all. Because if you don't, you'll come back and go, ah, I could have thrown that ball harder. I could have been a little less lazy in second base. I should have been more ready. You don't want to feel that way. Just give it your best. And when you're done, you gave it your best, give yourself a pat on the back. This is just, it's so simple. But count your blessings, not your troubles. When you're feeling in that doom and gloom, when you're worried, again, not worry, warts. Not everybody on here, not everybody on here is just worrying every second like Dean. I have not that much worry. But when you are worrying, stop, catch yourself. Not only focus on solutions, all the other stuff, immediately flood yourself. I want to give you an example in my own life. Immediately flood yourself with the blessings you have. So I used to think, you know, I talk about this and maybe this first time you heard it, if you're new here. But success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps. When something's not going right and it's not working, you try for a while, but then you give up. But when something's working for you, then it's a success trap. I'm going to give you an example. In my life, I used to get up a lot. I still do once in a while. But get up at 2:30, 3:00 clock and just the brain would start going and I think of all the things that I needed to fix and I would obsess over them. And sometimes I'd go down the negative path, like, God, if I can't fix that, if I don't fix this and this doesn't happen, will I have enough money? And all the things that we all do. But guess what? I was getting successful and more successful and more successful. So then I started thinking, well, maybe that's part of my unfair advantage. I get up at 2 o' clock and I think through all these problems and I find solutions. Wasn't true. Completely not true. But that's what I thought for a while. It was a success trap. So then the only way that I combated it, the only way that ever worked, I tried. Literally, I went through a phase where I was taking like nighttime, like nighttime pm, like Advil, pm to try to sleep through this two o' clock craziness, right? Nothing worked. You know what worked is instead of thinking about my troubles and how to fix them, I try to flood myself with all my blessings. And I would just go over it in my head. God, I'm so lucky that I had my grandmother in my life. God. And I think about my grandmother, I think about fishing with my grandma. I think about my God. I was this kid with dyslexia and I got book, New York Times, bestsellers, whatever phase this was in my life, if I had my kids, like, oh my God, I have two healthy, amazing kids who love me to death. And I would just start stacking the blessings and all of a sudden I'd be asleep. If you can stack troubles, you can stack blessings. You just got to be consciously aware of stacking blessings rather than stacking your troubles. What's up? What's up? Hey, before you go, you need to watch these next few videos. They're absolute game changers. Hurry up and click right over here and watch them and I'll see you there.
